WW 03.01.2007

We can confidently assure you that we didn't spend the whole of the Christmas break, in UK, worrying whether the Walk leader for the first walk of the New Year would pull himself together and write something for the blog, although I did take the liberty of emailing him before the walk to remind him to do so.
And my confidence was justified - a mini blog without pictures was awaiting me in my Inbox, with the terse comment:-
"( Richard Simons took one or two pics which you can get off him)". Well I may, if he has had time to go to Boots the Chemist, as the last I saw was he had an antique film camera - I stand to be corrected on this, as after all I wasn't there and he may have had a visit from Father Christmas in the interim!

My thanks to Rod for the following Accurate, Brief and Clear Blog.

Leader; Rod

Present; 17.

Mike P, Janet, Lindsey, Stan & Elaine plus Caroline and friend Kay, David L, Sue & Richard, Ian W plus friend Aneke, Chris & Antje, Dinah & Vitor

and Oscar, Tiggy and Pookie

Lured by fantastic weather and the promise of an easyish walk, a quite remarkable turnout for the first post festive season 2007 walk. Having met at Silves Cemetary, we drove up the S.Marcos back-road to the Café Pare e Fica and walked up the long but beautiful Aguas Belas valley. The many stream crossings were all more or less achieved without feet, or anything else for that matter, getting unduly wet. At the top of the valley we carried on to Acor Trig Point to take advantage of the fantastic views on such a magnificent clear day. The views of both the Arade and Funcho dams are splendid from there and it was great to note that both of them are absolutely full. We stopped for lunch 15 minutes into the return journey, high up on a windless ridge with more great views to the south before looping back round and down to the Aguas Belas valley start point . A slowish pace, with frequent pauses, meant we only covered 12 or 13 kms in a shade under 5 hrs…..or so it was estimated in the absence of the chief blogger’s advanced navigation equipment ( he still pursuing New Year revelries in Warwickshire) . That also probably accounted for the fact that it was a totally uneventful outing; nobody fell over or in anything, nobody got lost, broke or sprained anything or even left their stick behind, nothing serious to even blame the leader for, …....quite boring really! Well there was one lost mobile phone….bit unlikely that will turn up but you never know! Post walk refreshments were taken at the the Pare e Fica bar ….modest consumption in view of the fact that the 2 principal beer drinkers were absent.

I thought he would get some mileage out of "Ian W plus friend Aneke,", but not a hint of innuendo. I will seek clarification!